Trying to get hold of HRT in the time of Covid is like trying to score crack. Possibly, scoring crack is way easier than trying to persuade your GP to do your annual blood pressure test so you can renew your prescription while the nurse who does the blood pressure testing is socially distancing. I can’t be sure, obviously.

While they don’t much want to wrap a strap around my arm and press a button, they are very keen on sticking a syringe into me.

The vaccine call-up came in a text from the NHS the day before my blood pressure test, which they finally decided to give me after attempting to do it over the phone, despite me pointing out this wouldn’t work. They texted me to say I could now book my vaccine.

I ignored it, and explained to a friend why. ‘No, no, no!’ he wailed, passionately. ‘The government is doing everything it can to keep you safe, or you would moan that they hadn’t done enough to protect you.’

‘I’m not the sort to moan,’ I said, as he raised his eyebrows. Seriously, even though I do detest the modern world, I am a self-starter when it comes to coping. I don’t want the state to look after me. I want to be left alone to look after myself.

I wouldn’t trust the authorities to run a bath because I look at what they are advising and I see that it is plain lunacy.

As soon as the lockdown eased, the first thing they did was get as many people as possible back to the pubs, to drink themselves fatter and re-bugger their immune systems. The official response to a deadly flu that has killed tens of thousands is to souse the population in as much booze as possible and encourage them to indulge in the sort of behaviour that laid the population low enough to be susceptible to Covid so badly in the first place.

But no, apparently I’m the problem. Me, bang on nine stone coming out of winter, on my boring old low fat, no sugar, no alcohol, outdoorsy lifestyle.

I had a touch of Covid in February 2020, or so I suspect. I wrote about it at the time. I felt sick, then came a blinding headache, then I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs. It felt like the time I got altitude sickness near the summit of Kilimanjaro and had to be taken back down the mountain by a porter. I lay on the bedroom floor and did yogic breathing while the builder boyfriend refused to entertain the notion I was ill enough to be taken to hospital, as he doesn’t like to indulge me.

Having apparently had it and recovered, I’m entitled to think I’ve got antibodies that are up to the job. Why do I have to have artificial ones injected into me? I know that’s a downer for the Covid-phobic brigade, who want us all vaccinated for two reasons: one, so they can carry on being unhealthy, and two so they can book their villa.

When they say ‘do your bit for your country’, what they mean is, ‘do your bit for my holiday’.

No. I’m not getting an under-tested vaccine so the bourgeoisie can go to the gastropub to get wasted on Pinot Grigio while boasting about their trip to the Algarve. It’s them being drunk and obsessed with foreign travel that got us in this mess in the first place.

Well, they’ve had their jabs so I wish them bon voyage. I’m happy to stay at home and never go anywhere again if that is what freedom means now.

Let the vaccinated classes fly away to the sun. They think that means they’re free. But they’re not free. It’s an illusion. I’m the one who’s free, stuck at home in chilly England, with my natural antibodies coursing through my veins, washing my hands several hundred times a day as I was before it was fashionable, thanks to my OCD.

‘How are you feeling?’ said the nurse as she collected me from the waiting room of the deserted surgery, which had four chairs placed 20 metres apart in each corner of the empty room. ‘Oh, I’m very well!’ I declared.

She strapped the machine to my arm and pressed the button. ‘Oh dear,’ she said.

She did it again and the machine malfunctioned. She told me to sit back and ‘breeeeathe’ before doing it a third time. But the same figure as the first time came up.

She told me I could either book an appointment to come back and be fitted with a monitor or I could buy one online and send the readings in myself.

‘I’m sure you’re fine,’ she said, not looking me in the eye.